Old time radio DJ's

[shamus]

anybody work as a radio DJ? I did in college. I had the privilege of working and stepping back in time at WBAA located on the campus of Purdue University.

Some history of the station. Built in the 1920's, it was Indiana's first radio station and the very first station in the country to get a "W" call letter.

The board I used was built in 1940 as an electrical engineering project and was in operation up through the mid 1990's. It was all black with huge pod knobs and simple buttons and lights.

Everything was tube based and the station had a "hum" and smell. They even had the huge ribbon chrome RCA mics with the call letters on them for interviews. The big chrome "ON AIR" light was always cool to see light up.

And since there were no windows, you really had no sense of time; either of the day or year.

The whole set up is now at the Indianpolis Children's museum.

Every once in a while an old timer would stop by and take a look around. He'd say he'd work there in the 50's or earlier and say, "That's the same board I used!"

Only one "famous" person worked there that I know of, George Peppard. He signed a nice photo "To the Staff at WBAA."

It was really a great time of life and something I'll always remember.

 

[Michael Mallory]

I was a newsman in radio in the late 70s, but we didn't have anything...or anybody...particularly historical. This was in Springfield, Missouri, and most of the history, ironically, was on the television side, since there was a show called "Ozark Jubilee" broadcast from there in the '50s.

 

[Barry]

anybody work as a radio DJ? I did in college. I had the privilege of working and stepping back in time at WBAA located on the campus of Purdue University.

I did. I worked at American University's student run radio station (not WAMU). I don't remember much - it was about 13 years ago. I don't even remember if the station broadcast though, lol. I think there was a campus TV station that you could tune into to listen to the station.

I co-hosted a Ska show with my friend Wes. After Wes moved on I took over the show and played Ska, "Mod" and Soul music. The show was called "One Step Beyond" (creative, wasn't I, lol) and later "The Mod Set."

Barry

 

[Scuffy]

I'm currently a Jock at two stations. Both are owned by the ClearChannel monster but they are still quite a bit of fun. My full time position is on WYBL 98.3 the Bull, a country station that started up in August. That keeps me busy for 6 days of the week. Then on Sundays I am a Jock (in the same building) at an AC- read: adult contemporary- station, Star 97.1 WREO. Neither are the music I'd prefer to be working with/in but it pays the bills.

The building was built in the 40's and served and a private radio station. Then it switched over briefly to a television station that only went on the air to cover holidays and election events. That fell through and it went back to being an AM station (AM970) That frequency broadcast what was considered current music in the 50's and 60's and kept pretty much the same library until the mid 90's when it switched to talk radio. Also with that switch brought a few sister stations in. ClearChannel had taken over and wrangled in three of the other local stations and housed them in the same building. The 5th, the Bull, as mentioned before, was added recently.

The fun days of reel to reel are gone sadly. Now everything is "voice tracked" which is a way of saying that every break on your shift is recoreded ahead of time and a computer plays it back at the correct times. I don't like it, but on the same token I can't complain because I can get a morning shift done the evening before and get a good night's rest, wake up and work at my photo studio while listening to myself... kinda creepy too though.